The present invention relates to a photographic printer-processor and, more particularly, to a photographic printer-processor in which a sheet of photosensitive material is separated into individual frames for photographic processing.
Previous photographic printer-processors have had a printing section for printing images from photographic film onto a strip of photographic material, a cutter for separating an exposed (printed) part from the remaining unexposed sheet, and a processing section for developing the sheet.
In general, printing line-speed is higher than the photographic processing line-speed causing difficulties in the transportation of the exposed photosensitive material from the printing section to the processing section. These difficulties are especially troublesome for a sheet type printer-processor, because it is impossible to avoid completely the interference or overlap between the leading end of the photographic material and the trailing end of the formerly-exposed sheet. When the interference occurs, the photosensitive material may not be properly transported, causing a so-called jamming. Further, if the leading end of the photographic material and the trailing end of the formerly-exposed sheet partially overlap and are transported into the processing section as such, the overlapped part is unevenly developed because of an insufficient contact with a developing solution.